I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to metal reeds for wind instruments and a method for making such reeds, and more specifically to stainless steel reeds.
II. Description of Related Art
Most woodwind instruments are played by blowing air past one or more reeds in the mouthpiece which then vibrate, producing a musical tone. The reed for these instruments has historically been made of cane, which is of sufficient stiffness to produce the desired vibratory response, but which is also very delicate and subject to breaks, splits, molecular breakdown due to vibration and from the body acids to which it is subjected. An additional drawback to the cane reed is that disinfecting the reed is difficult, due both to its porosity and the fact that it must be kept moist to avoid cracking. On the other hand, an overly moistened reed loses elasticity and, therefore, does not vibrate as needed to produce the desired tones. Finally, the delicate nature of reeds has prevented blind and vision impaired music students from learning to play most woodwinds. Reeds require almost constant attention to maintain. For a blind student, inserting, checking and adjusting the reed means touching and usually breaking it.
Many attempts have been made to form a reed from plastic, plastic impregnated or fibrous-type material. These synthetic materials did not provide the same vibratory response as cane reeds.
Several early patents disclosed methods of making metal reeds for wind instruments which involved hammering the metal to thin and densify the tongue end of the reed (U.S. Pat. No. 1,133,868); or to grind or roll the tongue end to make it thinner (U.S. Pat. No. 1,616,748). A third patent describes cutting longitudinal grooves in the tongue to make the reed more elastic but still rigid (U.S. Pat. No. 1,667,836). None of the reeds described in these patents became commercially successful, however, and cane remains the favored reed for all woodwinds. The metal reeds did not have the vibratory response of cane due the ductile nature of the metal, so the instruments could not produce the desired tonal quality.
It would be desirable to have a reed which was durable and not subject to organic breakdown yet was capable of producing the optimal vibratory response which, until now, could be achieved only with cane reeds.